The woods are talking...

The wind is wild today.  It slams cold into my face up at the hill fort and harries the trees, making the beech, with all their fresh, young, and oh so green leaves, tremble.  The oaks are slower, calmer, not so hasty. Their leaves are only just uncurling, amber drops unfurling, cautious. 

And I stand with my back to my tree and I think how young and fragile-strong it feels. How all alone. It? Not him? And I wonder. Is this just another projection?  Have I got it wrong again?  Is this my self-tree? And for the first time I notice another, on the other side of the track - larger, wider, more solid.  And he (for this one, surely, is he?) doesn’t stand alone like my tree.  Other trees bustle around. Young beech saplings crowd around his roots.  And the thickest ivy (as thick as my upper arm) sticks like a vice to his trunk.  I tentatively tug it but it’s clinging tight.  And again it bothers me. But then I figure he probably likes it like that, really.  But then again, if you’re a tree, what choice do you have?

There are bluebells everywhere. 

The scent sends me back, thudding through time, to Gaunts House.  I had gone to write about retreating, was only able to spare a few days – how ironic.  And I was restless, a bit lost without the flurry of deadlines and the thrum of the city.  And so I walked, mind-fretting – and came across a bluebell wood.  

And cried, if I recall.  And sank into it.  And that was a point at which I could have taken my life in a totally different direction because, I realized, I didn’t need anything.  And I meditated a lot and did yoga and helped out in the garden, planting stuff, and didn’t really talk, just smiled, and it was good.  But then I went home and ego said ‘Be normal! Be successful! Be a good cog!’ and soul shrank back again, shy as bluebells. 

Anyhow.  Every walk in the woods is a medicine walk for me.  Things appear on my path and talk to me.  A while back it was all death and decay.  Bones, skulls, a broken wing nearly every step I took.  So I picked them up and adorned the small wooden hut with them – an offering to Baba Yaga.  And I laid low, hoping the Morrigan would fly past.

Today, however, it was all runes.  Twigs and branches in shapes of the runic alphabet.  Futhark. Tree messages. Chatty.

And what did they say? What did they say? 

They said…

Protection. The Spiritual Warrior’s battle is always with the self.  

And they said….

Flow.  The River. The Self.  Conjunctio; the sacred marriage. 

And then they tried to say something else but the SP bounced on them and scattered them to the wind.  

Watch Spot Die

This manifestation malarkey is working a treat.   Okay, so there’s the small question of the lottery but, hey, I won didn’t I?  And I bought another ticket as I figure today’s result was just a dry run.

In the meantime, I’m being sent exactly what I need.  Like the deep meditation track from Jackie Stewart. It’s sending me to such deep places – so way back into the past that I’m skipping millennia.  And then, this morning, a copy of The Psychic Way by Barbara Ford-Hammond.  I love it.  She’s so damn down-to-earth about airy-fairy stuff. I’ll tell you more about it when I’m done reading. 

But summer finally arrived on Exmoor today and it was too nice to stay in reading.  Adrian took James and Beth (his cousin, who’s here for the weekend) off to the mid-Devon show. I opted out.  I wanted some reflective time up at the hillfort. 

So the SP and I set off, with our lottery-won trawl, and climbed up the Cauldron (aka The Chimney, now renamed by James).  We stopped by Lulu’s tree – the one where we’d sat and she’d done her usual magic on me and absolved me of all my guilt (and, by heck, can I do guilt!) 

This tree had been bothering me for a while – the way it had a strand of ivy snaking round it.  It wasn’t an old oak tree – not like Hen’s Old Bert.  It was still straight and true.  It didn’t need strangling; it didn’t need pulling down by ivy.  So, a few days back, in the depths of my witchiness, I’d tried to pull it off.  But – ho hum – it wouldn’t detach.  Well, the middle bit did but it stayed grounded firmly at the root and stuck like superglue to the top.  Even swinging on it – like some demented Tarzan – wouldn’t dislodge the sucker.  It annoyed me.  But today I figured – whatever.  Maybe it’s okay like that.  Maybe it doesn’t mind.

And we went deeper into the woodland, away from the path, away from the possibility of people.  Following deer tracks until we found another oak – older, wiser, also straight and true, also embraced by ivy.  And I lay me down.

I had planned to do some yoga.  To stand tall in Tadasana.  To emulate the trees in Vrksasana.  To see the world sideways in Trikonasana.  To get a bit strong and centred with Virabhadrasana.  But instead I just stretched out – no, not even in Savasana, the corpse pose.  Just lay, felt myself supported by the soft ground, and gazed up at blue sky through green leaves.  I had a bit of a love-in with the Earth.  Felt the dappled sun on my face; felt the soft wind on my bare arms. 

The SP was busy – vanishing through bracken but coming back every so often to check in on me and plant a gentle lick on my face or touch a paw to my hand.

Then I turned and watched the world from the viewpoint of moss. 

I lost track of time.  I’m not sure how many hours I spent up there, clutching the earth.  Then a leaf landed on my hand – an oak leaf.  And I sat up and found an ivy leaf on my lap.  So I tucked them in my notebook, one at the front, one at the back, and walked away.

Walked slowly, meditatively, not my usual half-jog. 

Came back to find the house still empty.  So I sat in the garden and read a bit more of Barbara’s book and was pleasantly otherworldly for a little longer.  Then, all of a sudden, James was there, exuding eau de feral boy.  He plonked down next to me and handed me a sweet.  ‘Hey,’ he said.  ‘What’s a line you won’t find in an Enid Blyton book?’

I shook my head and frowned.  He started laughing, that infectious childish laughter. Could barely get the words out. ‘And so they put Timmy in a sack, threw him in the canal and said, ‘Right, we’re the Famous Four now.’
‘What?’ Started laughing myself.
‘I got this book from the fete. Did I tell you we went to the church fete as well?’
No, but never mind.

‘It’s brilliant,' he went on.  'Listen to this.  Things You Wouldn’t Read in a Children’s Book.  ‘With ten seconds to go in the Quidditch final, Hermione hid the snitch in her snatch.’ 

What the...? 

‘It gets better.  What about this? You remember Spot, right?'  I nodded weakly. God, did I remember bloody Spot.  He started grinning.  ‘Watch Spot Die!  See Spot turn malignant!’’ He convulsed with laughter.  ‘What about this one?  'As Prince Charming leant over Sleeping Beauty, he realised the Rohypnol had worked better than he’d hoped.’” He paused. ‘What’s Rohypnol?’

‘Er, what is that book?’  I snatched it from his sticky paw and rolled my eyes.  Mock the Week.   

From the church fete??

'And..Mum?  What's dogging?'

Ye gods. Where exactly in my three days of hard-working manifestation did I request that my child become exceedingly well-acquainted with filth? 

I have yurt envy

‘Turn here,’ said Trish, gesturing at a gap in the hedge as we were halfway up a one in five track.  ‘Are you sure?’
‘I think so.’
I swung the car onto a field and we bumped over a wide expanse of grass.
‘There it is!’
And there it was.  A small yurt set on top of the world.  Next to it a wooden structure, topped with tarpaulin, open on two sides, housing an outdoor kitchen. 

It's home for Hen and Leo, plus Willow the border collie.  And it’s beautiful. 

I’d been in my pit of course. Hadn’t really felt like doing anything much except curl up in a ball and cry but this had been planned weeks back and Trish doesn’t take prisoners.  She’s bootcamp mama, the woman partly responsible for my rippling quads and newly toned shoulders – she shouts, I just meekly obey.  So I went and it was what I needed. 

As we got out of the car, Hen came over, Willow bounding at her heels, and hugged Trish and hugged me.  The SP wriggled out and just fell on Willow in complete delight.

the stove  - pic by Hen

‘The soup is a disaster,’ said Hen, shaking her head. ‘Truly, it’s just gakkitygak!’
‘Hey, that’s okay.  The scones didn’t work out either,’ I said.  

Usually I make great scones. They’re my one area of culinary expertise.  Sod it, I’ve even won a prize for the darn things.  Except now, it seems, even that minor domestic skill has vanished.  I’d planned on taking some home-made japonica jelly to go with them but when I pulled down the last jar it had developed a nice furry crust of mould.  So it was fudge from the Tantivy instead.

Hen is one of those people who are just so *so* fabulous. Again, I *met* her on Twitter (so, see, it's not all bad!) - in fact you should follow her...here.  Sustainable land management is her “big thing”.  She lives in a yurt on the edge of an ancient oak woodland on Exmoor where she cares for 47 acres of oak wood, river and meadow.  Her aim is to help the woodland recover from years of over-grazing and lack of management.  She is also hoping to plant 6,000 trees to ‘fill in a break in a woodland corridor that runs from the North Devon coast, along a river to the moor.’

She showed us around the land and it’s heartbreakingly beautiful.  She gave us wood sorrel to nibble – ‘just like biting into a Granny Smith’ and pointed out the areas she’d cleared and where she wanted to plant trees and it made me think all over again that the environment has to our prime concern really.  Isn’t it obvious?  We can have the best society in the world but if we don’t have a world in which to live it… Or am I being stupid?

We walked back, with Willow and the SP playing all the way, and sat down on stools that Leo had made from greenwood, and ate our soup (which was delicious actually) outside and nibbled fudge and drank mugs of tea.  Then it started to rain so we went into the yurt and, by god, it was warm and cosy and lovely. 

And we talked about trees and baskets and long bows and deer and we talked about yurts and life in Mongolia, and about people and how they live on landscapes – either marching with clunky boots or dancing with light bare feet, all the while the dogs playing at our feet.

Anyhow.  I’m not really full of words right now so all I can do is suggest you take a walk to Hen’s website and blog and read about her vision.  And think about dancing rather than clod-hopping.  

Let me give you one small taster from her blog:

"You've met Old Bert before. He is my favourite tree. Bert is completely hollow inside (but he still has a huge heart), and he's so old he has lots of plants living on him. There's Old Ivy, who loves him so much that fifty years ago she wrapped herself around him and never let go, there's young Campion and Wood sorrel, and many old friend Lichens and Moss. He's a house for lots of little mammals, bugs and birds too. He doesn't mind though, Old Bert loves the company and life by the river is good."

Old Bert (pic by Hen)

Life by the river does look good, to be sure. Surrounded by trees, not people.  So does life in an isolated yurt, to be honest.  I have yurt envy. Deep deep deep yurt envy. 

actually this looks like a good spot for me!

Of oak trees, violets, dormice and children

It’s a whole different dynamic when Adrian’s away. Some people hate being alone but I love it (maybe because it doesn’t happen that often). I can do what I like when I like, without having to consider anyone’s feelings but my own. So today I had ‘lunch’ at 11.20am and then found myself at ‘lunchtime’ with no hunger yet a vague feeling I should mark the hour somehow. Now, I’m a great one for telling people to slow down, live in the moment, wake up and smell the roses and so on. But do I follow my own advice? Do I heck. I am horribly driven (presumably it’s the Capricorn in me) with an over-developed puritan work ethic – I feel guilty as sin if I sit down and do nothing for more than ten seconds.

But today I made myself sit outside and drink my tea. No good – I could see weeds – a whole chorus-line of them throwing up their skirts on the ‘raised patio’ (OK, the bit where the greenhouse used to be that was supposed to be an ‘outdoor eating area’ but never really happened). So I weeded until my tea got cold.

Then I thought, this is ridiculous. It’s a gorgeous day and I’ll go for a wander to say hello to the oak trees. The year after we moved here, when James was a small baby, we rescued three young oak saplings (from someone who was thinning out their woodland). It felt symbolic somehow – a tree each. Of course, as luck would have it, that year was supremely dry and we wore ourselves out carting up water from the river to keep them alive. But there they stand, getting on in size now, protecting our hill. For a fair few years I felt we had the placing of them all wrong. Although they are within sight of each other, two are definitely closer with one slightly on the outside. For a long time it bothered me and I would reason that the two close were James and I (mother and baby) with father standing watch (the other tree is slightly higher). But as I looked at them today I thought otherwise. James is the tree outside – for while Adrian and I are (presumably) stuck together for life, James will inevitably break free at some point and go his own sweet way. It is right and proper that it should be like that. We borrow children – they are not ours. Our job as parents is – I believe – to nurture them, support them, be totally there for them but (and such an important but) also to know when to let them go. There is nothing worse than a child who feels he or she cannot leave its parents.

It was warm, sunny yet with a brisk breeze and Jack and I followed an old sheep track. We have been leaving the upper part of the large field unmowed for the last few years to see what happened, and what has happened is a ton of wild flowers. I don’t know the names of half of them and must look them up. But today I kept noticing violets above all. Violets are fascinating in folklore terms. It is considered perfectly fine to pick bunches of violets and have a posy in your home, but you should never pick just one single one. It’s even worse luck to pick a violet with dew on its petals – it was said to augur the death of a loved one. Pick violets when the weather is fine and intense rain is supposed to follow (now there’s an idea). Yet on the plus side violets are supposed to be an antidote to evil and dark witchcraft – they were grown in medieval monastery gardens as a protection against Satan. All violets were supposedly white until Mary turned from watching Christ on the Cross at which point they became violet to echo her mourning (hence purple as an original colour of mourning). This however may hark back to earlier times still – in mythology, Cupid was said to love white violets and Venus/Aphrodite changed them to purple in what amounts to sheer spite basically – jealous old bint.
Of more interest to a lot of Exmoor folk is the old belief that wearing violets while hunting was supposed to ensure that you didn’t fall off your horse.
Talking of horses, I also noticed a tiny horse chestnut sapling – only about six inches tall. It’s a long way from our other horse chestnuts and I had to wonder if it had come from a conker dropped from one of James’s pockets. I’m not sure if it will survive as it’s in a slightly exposed spot and liable to be tramped on or nibbled – but it must take its chances. Though as I reached in my pocket I found an old conker and tossed it into a small hole on the bank – it’s probably too old and dried but you never know.

Jack and I sat down on the bank that marked the old hedge-line, by a tangled stand of beech and silver birch. Thoughts were still whirring round my head so I shut my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing. It’s amazing how something so simple slows you right down. Immediately I could notice the cool air on my nostrils, redolent with the faintest tang of gorse’s coconut and the pure distilled scent of ‘green’. The birdsong became a concerto of woodpigeon, woodpecker, rook, thrush, blackbird and pheasant. Inevitably of course the JTR from my nearest neighbours decided it deserved a solo – but a hand on Jack’s shoulder stopped him from making it a duet (he is still being remarkably nice after yesterday’s shocks).

A quick tour down by the river and I picked up a few hazel-nuts. I expect you know that you can always tell if you have dormice by the way nuts are eaten. Whereas a squirrel will splice the nut in half, a dormouse will delicately nibble a little round hole. We seem to still have a healthy population of these teeny tiny mice. Often they nest right by the backdoor and drive Jack potty by flitting across the patio while he is stuck inside watching.
The house martens don’t seem fazed by the unseasonably warm weather and lack of mud: their nests are looking very ship-shape.
I came back from my wander refreshed and recharged – and ready to tackle my dreary feature on allergies again (if anyone has been cured of an allergy do let me know and you can feature as a case study!).

By the way, thank-you so much to everyone who has read and commented on the prologue of my novel Walker between Worlds (see link on left hand side). I’ve posted Chapter One now and will put up the other chapters as and when I can (I’m trying to do some editing before putting them up). I’d really love you to continue reading and giving me your (honest) impressions and suggestions. And yes, would really welcome feedback from any of the target audience (12+). I’m relying on Frances to correct any howlers I make about US vocabulary and syntax!

Reading this back it's a bit 'worthy'. So the picture is of the infamous Woods - James insists that, regardless of Adrian not being here, we must fulfil our Friday early evening ritual of a ginger beer (or spritzer) and bags of Burts crips. So this is where we'll be come 6.30pm.... anyone fancy joining us?